Identity (Identity)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Monday, September 28, 2009, 16:35 (5534 days ago) @ David Turell

Note here, as I seem to run into this: I am not making any claims concerning the origin of consciousness or about the likelihood of a creator. All I'm saying is that the complexity of even things such as the human mind, *may* not be mysteries forever.
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> Matt: Hold your nose and look up this site. ID people turn up the most interesting discussions. Read the paper Hunter refers to on the difficulties in understanding the brain's computing functions. It is a pdf file and I don't have the capacity to refer it to this site. Obviously Hunter has a different take than you will.)
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> http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/-One major criticism:-we believe the problem is not computer power and ability to program parallel machines, but rather our nearly total ignorance about what computations are actually carried out by the brain. Our view is that computers will never equal our best abilities until we can understand the brain's design principles and the mathematical operations employed by neural circuits well enough to build machines that incorporate them.-I contend that we will never "understand the brain's design principles" without a trial-and-error process of literally trying to build a brain. I said it before and I will state it again: Neuroscientists are not going to solve this problem. (I have Adler for backup on that one.) Computer Scientists will. Neuroscience (and biology at large) [EDIT] are descriptive sciences, and you can't do as much with descriptive as constructive. To me, I think he sees the complexity and gives up. -I chuckle a bit at this line too: Religion drives science and it matters. -Yes, religion matters, but the first part of the statement is an empty claim. Few atheists will say that atheism inspires them; less so for agnostics, and we can both agree that there is no greater source of atheists and agnostics than academia. Unless you loosen the term "religion" to mean "awe of nature." But that's clearly diluting the man's point; that's something we all share regardless of theistic predisposition. -On an interesting sidenote, you've used the Einstein quote before about science without religion being lame. Here's something pulled from an old issue of Skeptic:- I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being. - - Albert Einstein, letter to Guy H. Raner Jr., Sept. 28, 1949, quoted by Michael R. Gilmore in Skeptic, Vol. 5, No. 2 -EDITED

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"